The Moth Podcast: Ear Hustle

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Welcome to the Moff Podcast.

I'm your host for this week, Edgar Ruiz Jr.

I'm really excited to introduce to you two special guests that we have on today.

They are the hosts of one of our favorite podcasts, Ear Hustle.

Nigel Poor and Erlon Woods.

Say hi.

Hey, what's up, Witch?

How you doing?

Hello, very happy happy to be here.

So Ear Hustle is one of those podcasts that so many people at the moth are kind of in love with.

For people listening to this who might not be familiar with the program, can you talk about what Ear Hustle is and what stories it shares?

Sure.

You want to start, E?

No, no, dig in, nod.

All right, all right.

So Ear Hustle is a podcast about everyday life in prison told from the perspective of those experiencing it.

Erlon and I started working on it together in, what, 2015?

Pretty much.

Yep.

Yeah.

When Erlon was incarcerated at San Quentin.

I always forget how long your sentence was.

I don't know why.

Maybe I just want to forget it.

Yeah, it was two life sentences.

So, yeah, he was serving a life sentence, and I was a volunteer at the prison.

And our original idea was to create a podcast that would air inside all of the prisons in California.

That was our big dream.

But before we hit that dream, we started airing the podcast outside of prison.

and it just grew from there.

Everyone outside got the ear hustle.

And then Erlon you your sentence was commuted in I'm very

sorry.

Yes, 2018.

Yeah.

Because of the podcast.

Yeah.

Yes.

And since then we've been telling stories outside and inside of prison and now we get to do things like this, get to talk to you about the moth together.

We get to talk to the storytellers.

Exactly.

It's great.

This is really in alignment with our work at the moth.

I'm the manager of the community engagement team and we get the privilege to work with a lot of incarcerated and post-incarcerated folks, helping them share their stories.

In fact, stories all about the prison system have been a big focus of our community storytelling workshop since 1998.

And it's really cool to be in a conversation with you both today.

So this is going to be a little bit of a special episode.

We'll be starting off by hearing an excerpt from the Ear Hustle podcast.

And then following that with a story from the MOF that feels related.

Nigel, Erlon, can you set this up for us?

In particular, can you tell us what Bonnaroo means?

So Bonnaroo is a term, I don't know who created this term, but what it is, is when you are all creased up,

matching, you look like you ready to go to the club.

That's what Bonnaroo is.

Your shoes are shined.

Your pants are creased.

Your shirt is creased.

You probably got a cool little haircut to go with it.

But when they use the term Bonnaroo, that's what they mean, that

you came out for business, and I mean clubbing business.

The clip that we're about to hear is from an episode called Tax is Tripping.

And Nigel, what is that episode?

I mean, what is.

Okay, so this episode, at least, well, this clip from Tax is Tripping is about how do you, well, can Bonneroo be a verb?

How do you bonneroo in prison?

Is that a verb?

Can you bonneroo?

So that's what this clip clip is about.

I mean, it's a big deal in prison, right?

You usually have to, well, not usually, you have to wear a uniform and you're supposed to look like everybody else.

So one of the interesting things is how do people push back against that and find workarounds to look bonnaroo?

To show their own identity.

Exactly.

Show their own identity through how they physically present themselves.

And

this particular clip.

I think has everything that an ear hustle story strives for, which is it's looking at a serious topic, but it also is being done with a little bit of humor, introspection, and surprise.

Now let's take a listen to Ear Hustle.

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

I had a honey bun.

You start your day with that much sugar?

Yeah, I work it off, but yeah.

How old are you?

I'll be 34 this September.

Okay, that's why he can do that.

After 40, you can't start your day like that.

No, it stays with you for the rest of your life.

Nobody should start the day like that, but I mean, I'm in prison, so I've earned that.

This is Tax.

New York and I talked to him a while back in San Quentin.

How many honey buns do you eat a week?

I think I did probably somewhere along 13 a week.

That's twice a day-ish.

By the time you get out of prison, how many honey buns do you think you will have eaten?

Let's see, four years.

And

we'll go

over a thousand for sure let's just say that

was this gonna be a honey bun interview or nah nah I want to ask you about what I we could make it one I've got some honey bun stories

I was gonna ask Najee is this actually an episode about the honey buns and I didn't get a memo don't you wish it were yeah because I would have been like we finna put that ass one song up in here so the breakfast thing is just this standard question we ask people when we're setting their mic levels we actually asked tax down to the studio to talk about clothing and about a particular piece of clothing he saw when he first got to San Quentin.

I came to this prison in January 2019

and one of the first things I saw when I got off the bus was somebody in a bomber jacket.

If anybody knows what a bomber jacket is, they're pretty stylish.

Almost Letterman jacket type.

They're fitted.

They're tailored around the bottom, also around the sleeves and on the collar and uh

i thought they were prison issue uh yeah i've seen the actual prison issue jackets and they are nothing like what he's describing

if anybody knows what these cdcr uh blue jackets look like they're pretty crappy they look like a a mix between trash and a raincoat um

They snap up the front.

They're just like wearing a shapeless blue thing.

Windbreaker.

Yeah, they're

I wouldn't say shape.

It's like a rectangle feeling going on.

Almost like you're wearing a stiff dress.

Yeah, it's not flattering.

Those bummer jackets, on the other hand, though, they fit right.

I was like, well, how do I get one of those?

Because that's what I want.

And

you couldn't find it.

Nobody would tell you anything.

It's kind of pretty hush-hush.

It took me almost a year to figure out where I could get this jacket.

We should tell them why this is so hush, hush, not.

Yes.

Well, what we're talking about is upgrades.

Pretty much.

Upgrades to a standard set of clothing the state gives you when you get to prison.

And that includes stuff like t-shirts, boxers, pants, and shoes.

Right.

And that's state property.

And the state doesn't want you messing with it.

And they definitely don't want you altering it so much that you can blend in with civilians and walk out the front gate.

That's what's called escape paraphernalia.

Yes.

But that bomber jacket, I don't want to say it's escape paraphernalia per se, but Erlon, it's a pretty big alteration.

It's nice.

Definitely.

It is nice.

And this is what they'll do.

They'll take the elastic collar, the cuffs, the waistband from a state-issued sweatshirt and sew those into a state-issued windbreaker.

And you end up with this cool-looking giddy up, you know, that kind of looked like a bomber jacket, a top gun.

Nice.

What was it, Goose Nim?

Believe it or not, I've never seen that movie.

And Tax really wanted one, so he kept asking around.

And finally, a year after he saw that first one, Tax sees a second bummer jacket.

He knew that he was about to go to visiting and he wanted to be styling for the pictures he'd take.

So he talked to the guy with the jacket.

I was like, hey, can I wear your jacket?

Oh, for the picture.

For the picture.

Yeah.

Took a picture in it.

I liked the picture.

I sent it home uh my family was like oh i like your little jacket i'm like yeah me too

putting that jacket on did it bring back any memories or feelings it it just made me feel like i was

not so much in prison on the streets um

i dress a certain way my clothes are fitted tailored i don't wear anything that's oversized um or undersized i'm not a baggy clothes wearer

kind of get that nostalgic feeling like you know what?

I miss how I look.

And that's one thing about prison.

It made me feel like I'm bummed out.

I'm not me, don't look like me.

You kind of want some semblance of normality.

So as much as you can escape this place, that's what I was feeling.

Like, you know,

all right, hey, I'm looking good.

All right, I like this.

So what do I got to do to get this jacket, man?

Yeah, do I got to sell my soul or anything like that?

He says, you know what?

You like that one?

I'm like, I do.

He said, just take it.

In return, Tax gives this guy the materials he needs to make himself a new bomber jacket.

So Tax has this jacket.

He loves it.

And he makes a vow to never part with it.

You couldn't grab this jacket without me noticing.

I will absolutely not let this jacket go.

It's going to stay with me until I leave here, at which point I will probably

choose very carefully who I give it to.

So one day I'm asleep.

It's early in the morning.

I hear,

and I'm going, what the fuck is that?

This is Jesse.

He was Tax's bunky at the time.

And I look up and there's two cops.

He goes, which locker is yours?

And I went, oh, no.

And I'm thinking I'm going to the hole.

My stomach sinks.

I'm like, oh, I go, this one.

He goes, well, good, because we're looking for your bunky.

And I said, oh, no.

He goes, well, look, you can pack his shit up or we can do it.

And I said, fuck.

I just got up.

I said, let me get it.

I'll take care of it.

Tax was headed to the hole.

And when you get sent to the hole, all of your stuff gets packed up, and then the officers decide what they're going to let you have.

So Jesse was packing up all Tax stuff, and he was trying to do a nice job with it.

Yeah, I mean, E, we've talked about this on the show a lot.

Your bunky or Sally,

that's an important relationship.

Hell yeah.

And Jesse says Tax was a good bunkie.

I know his character.

I know his program.

Comfortable.

That's a big thing in here.

my tv got fox which shows friday night wrestling so i'd come back from group on friday night he'd be sitting on my bed watching my tv with a bowl of deli bites and a little rice bowl with some sweet and sour soy sauce and stuff hoisting and a pepsi for me going and he just pointed at the tv so maybe he'd have it ready for you yeah and he'd have his bowl with hips pepsi the splitter cable coming off for his headphones he's watching tv and he looks at me and he's like and he just pointed at wrestling like it's on and i knew already like all right just sit down and eat and watch the wrestling show you know what what I mean?

You gotta say, that's really sweet.

Yeah.

So that's, you know what I mean?

That's his character.

So all the important stuff, TV, watch, radio, fan, you know, all these important items.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

I'm getting them in there and started packing this shit up.

Nothing was in my mind except what the fuck happened.

Where's he going?

God damn, that sucks.

All that kind of shit.

It wasn't until later that day that Jesse realized the one thing he'd forgotten to pack.

The whole bed was empty.

Everything was gone except that jacket was hanging on the end of the bed.

And I remember looking at it and I said, oh, his jacket.

So I went to the officer who packed up his stuff and I said, hey, is he coming back?

He goes, I think so.

So Jesse tucked that jacket away in the safest place he could.

But days went by.

Tax didn't come back.

A month passed, two.

COVID happened and things started to look pretty bad.

It hit the six-month mark and somebody was like, hey, man, what's up with Tax?

Is he coming back?

And I said, I don't know.

Let me go check.

So I went to the only officer I know that I have a good rapport with, like that anyway.

And I said, hey, is he coming back?

And he goes, he goes, I don't think so, man.

I think it's been too long.

I think they're going to ship him out.

And when he said that, I walked back and I took the jacket, right?

Literally, I put it on to just try.

I was like, I'm going to wear it.

I'm going to wear this fucking jacket.

You hadn't worn it?

Not once, not the whole time.

It just sat there the whole time.

Didn't wear it.

It was underneath my jacket.

I don't even wear a jacket at the chow.

I'm Canadian.

It ain't cold out here to me.

I walk in in the rain to chow.

I don't care.

I put the jacket on, and he's taller than me, so it kind of don't look right.

It don't look like a bomber.

So the dude next to me, he saw me with it on.

He goes, Hey, what's up with that jacket?

Let me get it.

And I was like, Ah, that's my bunkies, man.

He was like, Well, what's up with him?

Is he coming back?

I said, No, he goes, Let me get it.

Who cares?

I said, Well, if he does come back, I need the jacket back.

You didn't sell it?

You just gave it away?

No, yeah, I just, I just wanted to see somebody wear it

and enjoy it.

how long were you in the hole uh six months oh yeah I was gone for my jacket for six months Erlon literally three days after Jesse finally gives away it was just a temporary loan okay so three days after he temporarily loaned Tax's jacket out Jesse sees Tax on the yard fresh out of the hole I saw him on the yard and the first thing that popped up, the only good news I could tell him was, hey, I still got your jacket.

Hey, your jacket's still here.

When I heard it was still here, it was kind of like, oh.

And he just snapped his facial expression, went, go get it.

Oh, you have the jacket?

Yeah, I don't care about anything else but the jacket.

I want the jacket.

Only problem is, Jesse doesn't actually technically have the jacket.

Right.

He had given it to another guy, and that guy had spent those three short days he had the jacket washing it.

I mean, kind of obsessively washing it and making it his own.

He washed the shit out of it, right?

Used state soap the first time.

Then he used laundry detergent the next time, tied, then he used gain the third time to make it smell good, hung it up and dried it.

This was a Saturday, Sunday.

He came back on a Monday.

The jacket literally was just like fresh from the dry cleaners.

Somebody else had the jacket and he took care of it.

He washed it and everything.

I was like, wow, you know, okay, cool.

But I want it back.

They're like, just give me the jacket back

i said well i got to get it from the neighbor because he just washed he goes well go get it and i said well he's asleep right now we'll go get it it was apparent that i wasn't going to get the jacket back for a while and

at which point um i kind of flipped the switch um were there some strong words used they were interesting words i'd say What I said along the words was, I'll be in there later to get that jacket.

And I fully intended to go in there and get the jacket.

Before I could get back to the building, I bent the corner.

I heard, hey, I need that jacket, man.

I'm going to get my jacket.

If I don't get that jacket back, I'm coming up in there.

Then I heard this little screeching voice, go, Jesse, Jesse, Jesse.

I was trying to

calm Tax down until he got the jacket back.

This is Quincy.

He was a screeching guy.

Right.

He was yelling at Jesse to hurry up and get that jacket while he tried to keep Tax calm.

And he was livid.

Oh my God.

Look, I'm going to let you know this right now.

Pack up my stuff if I'm going to the hole.

I was like, you just got here.

Let me get this straight.

You were ready to go back to the hole

where they would not even let you have the jacket for the jacket.

Yes.

And so me being the Christian man that I am, I was like, Tax, let's just pray about this, man.

Lord,

we come to you and

tax is tripping and we want to calm him down.

So any way possible, if you can de-escalate this and bring him back his jacket, send that jacket back.

In Jesus' name, amen.

So Jesus got him his jacket back, right?

Well, actually, it was Jesse.

I gave this dude laundry soap for a month.

I gave him like $2 in food, like $1 and a bar of soap.

Oh my God, I need everything.

So if if you gave it to the guy, why did you have to pay to get it back?

Because it was like, I'd be stealing it if I didn't compensate him for his time and his effort.

But what about the fact you made a contract, a stipulation that if your bunky came back, you need the jacket back?

He did not remember that in that moment.

But you had kept it for five months and 30 and 27 days.

And then three days after you gave it away,

tax comes back.

Literally like Jesus out of the tomb or something.

Quincy, the guy who prayed to the Lord while Tax was tripping, he and Tax did become friends.

And Quincy says, now he never sees Tax without that jacket.

If you had to speculate, why is this jacket so emotionally important to him?

Seeing everybody in blues, and a lot of people do wear,

you start looking like the other person.

And then all of a sudden, you know, everything is monochromatic.

You know what I mean?

It just looks, everything looks the same.

There's no standout.

And I think this made him stand out and it gave him a sense of

freedom, you know, and

he was,

he was going to get that freedom back.

That was a clip of the Ear Hustle episode, Taxes Tripping.

You can find Ear Hustle wherever you get your podcast.

We also have a link in the show description.

Up next, we'll have a maf story that also deals with adaption and getting along with people while incarcerated.

But first, I wanted to talk a little bit more about Ear Hustle itself.

Walk me through the process behind telling stories within a prison.

Ooh,

that's a long process.

I would say first, you know, of course, we have to identify a story or a theme that we want to talk about.

And then we have to find the individuals that's going to be able to articulate talk about what the story is.

So usually we would either, you know, do it by word of mouth, asking individuals, or, you know, when I was incarcerated, we used to put up signs on the walls in the buildings where, hey,

do y'all have anything in common with this?

Can y'all come talk to this?

And some people will come down.

Well, it's interesting.

When we started, when Erlon was still inside, people didn't know ear Hustle.

And so he was constantly ear hustling, trying to find stories whenever he was standing in line somewhere.

And we had to do a lot more fishing, I guess you would say, to find people to talk to us.

But after Ear Hustle came out and it started playing in all of the prisons and people could hear it, it sort of shifted.

Now people come to us a lot with ideas for stories.

What specific challenges

did you face?

I could imagine, you know, putting this together isn't easy.

It's huge.

I mean, imagine, you know, when you're in prison, you have no internet, you don't have phone access, it's very hard to print anything.

You don't have all of the, you know, the programs you have on your computers out here.

So we were transcribing things by hand at first.

Yep.

You know, I had to, once I left the prison, I had no contact with Erlon.

So, you know, I was in there working all the time.

We worked probably 40 plus hours a week, but we had to be really scheduled and on point about what needed to be done when I was out there, what I had to accomplish out there, what he had to accomplish inside, and then what we were going to do when we were inside the prison together.

There could be lockdowns where I couldn't get into the prison for weeks.

I think maybe there was one time when it was a month.

I mean, anyone in the prison administration can change their mind and say, no, this isn't going to happen.

So we had to tread lightly, be really determined,

and do what I call the three P's: patience, politeness, and persistence

to just get things done and not get frustrated and really support each other.

Definitely.

Because the one thing that is always going to be unpredictable, and that's whether or not it will be normal program the following day.

You know, and that's the one thing that, you know, can't, nobody controls because, you know, you have, of course, 4,000 personalities that's in that prison.

And, you know, one of them could do something that, you know, jeopardized the program of everybody else, you know.

We don't have to be this this way now, but for the couple years, I can't remember how many years it was before.

It was like two years we were working on this inside.

Um, I left every day knowing I might not see Erlon for a while, and so

we both had to have that frame of mind that it wasn't like, okay, I'll see you tomorrow, we hope we see each other tomorrow, but that wasn't a given, never a given.

What do you think the role of storytelling is within a prison?

Hmm,

me personally, um,

I think

storytelling,

I don't want to say necessarily accountability.

I just want to say storytelling opens people up to

a conversation that they don't usually have.

You know what I'm saying?

Or stuff that they don't usually tell, or especially, you know, the way that we do stories, you know,

people get to speaking on stuff that is really dear to them that they knew, they knew it was in them, but they never really exposed it.

And I think, you know, that's to for me that's that's part of the storytelling process um is really getting something out of people that either they never talk about comfortably comfortably is that the word

that that that's how i see it a lot of times you know people really

when you when you when you having conversations and telling stories people say some stuff that you know will take us aback you know and like damn that was deep

yeah i mean i think storytelling in prison or really anywhere is, and when you're, it's the telling the story, but it's also somebody listening.

It needs, there's those two components.

And when you're telling a story and you know someone's listening to you, it's a way of saying, I exist and I matter.

And it's a deeply emotional and pivotal experience for a lot of people who feel like they haven't been heard before or haven't been considered.

And I'm sure this happens on the moth when people are telling the story and they and they realize that they've got undivided attention.

It's a boost to one's self-esteem and creativity and sense of well-being.

I think it's an essential experience for people to have.

Awesome.

Thank you for sharing that.

When people listen to Ear Hustle, what is something that you want them to come away with?

There's a big list here.

Go Ear Hustle.

Yeah, there's a big list.

You know, one, again, I think Nigel probably alluded to it that, you know, people exist.

They still here.

You know, their stories didn't end, you know, when they were in the courtroom and sentence.

You know,

life goes on, you know, and a lot of time, people

in prison, of course, are the marginalized population.

But, you know, we're able to at least, you know, bring their stories to people.

Every time we put a story out, the one thing I always like to see and hear from people is, this is my new favorite story.

Yeah, we do hear that a lot, which is nice.

I want people to, when they hear our stories, to think about who's in prison in a different way.

I want them to think about the responsibility they have as taxpayers to know what's happening inside prison.

I want them to see the commonalities between life inside and life outside.

I want

both sides, the people who are telling the stories and the people outside listening, to feel empowered to make change.

I want people to be entertained and amused and intellectually and emotionally challenged.

I love when a story makes people think in a new way.

So

when we started doing the podcast, we did get a few kind of eyebrows raised that we used humor in our podcast.

But I think that's really important.

I want people to understand that you know, just because someone's incarcerated, it doesn't mean their whole life there is a flat line of frustration and anger.

There's so many, of course, you know, life in there is like life out here.

You're going to have all kinds of experiences.

And so I think having the humor and the curiosity and the creativity that comes across in the people that we interview is really important.

And I want that to come across in the stories, too.

Thank you so much for the work that you do.

This is important work.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Up next, we've got a maf story from Derek Hamilton.

We met Derek when he took part in the Moff Community Workshop with the New York Innocence Project.

He told the story you're about to hear in a showcase for those justice-related stories.

The show was intimate intimate and mostly invite-only, which is why you'll hear a small but mighty crowd cheering him on.

Here's Derek live at the mall.

In 1992, I was convicted of murder in a Brooklyn courtroom.

I was sentenced to 25 years of life.

I was sentenced to a maximum security prison throughout New York State.

I spent 10 years in special housing unit.

And any of y'all I watched Training Day, Denzel Washington said 23 and 1 in the shoe program, Pelican Bay, that's where I live.

Some of the most inhumane treatment you can imagine.

Prisoners banging on walls all night, yelling and screaming, feces being thrown on inmates, urine being thrown on inmates.

The only one peace in solitude that I had was two law library books that came every day from a prison guard.

You had 24 hours to study the book and learn all the knowledge that you could in that little period of time before you had to turn it back the next day.

The banging, the screaming, the yelling interrupted me.

There was a guy on top of me by the name of Spud Webb who we all had came to the conclusion was insane.

He was extraordinarily the most insane person in that special housing unit.

None of us wanted to talk to Spud Webb when he get any movement.

He would curse you out, derogatory names, it made no sense.

This day, after enduring six hours of banging and yelling, I convinced myself to get down on the vent and yell up to Spud Webb.

We would yell through the vent to have conversations with each other on the higher floors because there's no other way to communicate.

People would call me for legal questions and I would answer them.

So this day, I knelt down and I said, Spud Webb.

Remind you, Spud Webb banged all day.

So I timed that he would stop for about 30 seconds and then he would go right back.

So I had to get Spud Webb in his 30 seconds, but he was tired.

Then I had to have a compelling argument to Spud Webb why he should stop banging.

So on this day, I yelled again, Spud Webb,

Spud what?

Spud what?

And he said, what?

And I said, can you stop banging?

And he said, no.

You read law books, I bang.

Banging is my livelihood.

I had no fight left.

I had to think a little bit.

I said, this guy's not insane.

He seemed to be the smartest one in this conversation.

I pondered and I said, what should I say to Spud Webb?

So I said, Spud,

well, can you lower the banging down a little bit?

Don't bang so loud.

He says, I'll try.

For that moment, I felt that I had a victory.

You know, I had Spud Webb willing.

to try not to bang so loud.

So I learned something that day.

I learned that we perceive people to be a certain way based on prejudices and institutional biases.

That Spud Webb, like me, was living in inhumane conditions and he found banging as a way to escape it.

And if it wasn't from his banging, Spud Mebb might have been dead from suicide or some of the other things that we've seen.

So I had empathy with Spud Webb, even though he banged.

And from that moment, I looked at him through different eyes.

And that is my story.

That was Derek Hamikin.

Derek is the deputy director of the Pearl Murder Center for Legal Justice at the Cardoza School of Law in New York City.

While wrongfully incarcerated, he taught himself law and worked on both his case as well as helping other prisoners with their cases.

He's also the legal director of Families and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted.

Through the years, we've worked with many different justice-related partners to develop and showcase these stories that sparked much-needed conversation.

The MOFS partnership with the Innocence Project and the Innocence Network actually goes back almost 20 years, and they are one partner in our growing network of collaborators.

To find out more about the MOFS work with people involved with the criminal legal system, go to themoff.org.

Well, that's all for this episode.

Thank you so much for joining us, Nigel and Erlon.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

Yeah, thanks for having us us and great great great conversation thank you before we leave is there anything you want to say about ear hustle to the moth listeners yeah

start at the beginning if you've never heard ear hustle start at the beginning

and I'm gonna appreciate you for sharing it because once you listen you're gonna share it to your closest friend I guarantee you

first of all I love the moth I love listening to moth stories I love thinking about the listeners that are in the audience taking in what's happening.

So I hope that our stories can offer that same experience to the moth community.

If they take a listen, they'll

feel the same kind of connection they feel when they listen to a moth story.

You can listen to EarHustle wherever you get your podcast.

We also have a link in the show notes.

And keep an eye out for a really great moth story on EarHustle.

That'll drop July 10th.

From all of us here at The Moth,

have a storyworthy week.

Edgar Ruiz Jr.

is the manager of the Community Engagement Program and a Story Slam host at The Moth.

He is a comedian and storyteller who has been featured in the Moth's latest book, A Point of Beauty, True Stories About Holding On and Letting Go.

This episode of the Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin-Janess, Sarah Jane Johnson, and me, Mark Salinger.

The rest of the Moth's leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jennifer Hickson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Gluche, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant Walker, Leanne Gully, and Aldi Caza.

The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners.

Stories like these are made possible by community giving.

If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org/slash giveback.

All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers.

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story, and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.

The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at PRX.org.

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